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Relationships in Organized Helping: Analyzing interaction in psychotherapy, medical encounters, coaching and in social media
Edited by Claudio Scarvaglieri, Eva-Maria Graf and Thomas Spranz-Fogasy
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 331] 2022
► pp. 127–150

Relationship management by means of solution-oriented questions in German psychodiagnostic interviews

| University of Greifswald
| University of Heidelberg
| University of Cologne
| Leibniz-Institute for the German Language Mannheim

The article addresses Solution-Oriented Questions (SOQs) as an interactional practice for relationship management in psychodiagnostic interviews. Therapeutic alliance results from the concordance of alignment, as willingness to cooperate regarding common goals, and of affiliation, as relationship based upon trust. SOQs particularly allow for both: They are situated at the end of a troublesome topic area, which is linked to low agency on the patient’s side, and they reveal understanding of and interest in the patient. Following the paradigm of Conversation Analysis and German Gesprächsanalyse this paper analyzes the design and functions of SOQs as a means for securing and enhancing the relationship in the process of therapy. Our data comprise 15 videotaped first interviews following the manual of the Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnostics. The analyses refer to all SOQs found but will be illustrated by means of a single conversation.

Keywords: relationship, therapeutic alliance, solution-oriented questions, psychodiagnostic interview, psychotherapy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and method
  • 3.Analyses
    • Design
    • Positioning and context
    • Sequential organization and global development of relationship
      • Positions 0–2
      • Positions 3 and 4
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 September 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.331.06kab
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